


And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt

by amathela



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-03
Updated: 2012-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-16 17:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/pseuds/amathela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Team Jess is not a thing.  (It's so a thing.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt

**Author's Note:**

> Set early season one.

01.

Jess makes them t-shirts. Of course Jess makes them t-shirts. She's Jess, that's pretty much what she does; really, the only surprising thing is that this is the first time.

"Okay," Winston says, picking up one of the shirts. He's a braver man than Nick. "First of all, there's no such thing as Team Jess."

Jess' face falls (for approximately three and a half seconds - she's nothing if not resilient), and Nick almost feels bad for her. Almost. Then she starts smiling again, and he thinks maybe they need to be a little harsher.

"And second of all," Nick cuts in, "there's no way that any of us are wearing these. They're ridiculous."

That doesn't even seem to faze her. Maybe she's used to him being an asshole by now.

"How are they ridiculous?" she asks. With a straight face. Maybe she should have been an actress instead.

"They're homemade shirts with your name on them."

"All my homemade shirts have my name on them," she points out. It almost sounds reasonable, except for how it totally isn't. "Besides, they're friendship shirts."

"That isn't a thing!"

"Well, maybe it should be."

Honestly, she's _infuriating._

"Jess," he says, trying not to sound as exasperated as he feels and probably failing. "We're not even friends, we're _roommates._ "

There's silence for a second. Schmidt passes him the jar. (He puts in a dollar; it was a douchebag thing to say.)

"I didn't mean -" he starts, and then, "I just don't want to wear the t-shirt."

Jess doesn't look hurt. She looks - determined.

That can't be a good thing.

"Oh," she says, "but you will."

-

He doesn't know how she does it, since he hasn't actually left the apartment since yesterday. But somehow, when he opens his closet, there's that stupid shirt, sitting next to all his real clothes like it belongs there.

"Jess," he yells, and she's there in his doorway straight away, like she's been waiting for it. "What is this doing in here?"

"What is what doing in there?" she asks, the picture of innocence, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Her eyes are too damn wide.

"This," he says, ripping the shirt out. The hanger crashes to his feet. (Maybe he's getting a little too worked up over this. He just - he doesn't wear novelty shirts, okay?)

"I don't know," she says, and now she's overselling it, raising her hands up beside her head. He was probably wrong about the actress thing. "Maybe you put it there?"

"I didn't - why would I put this here?" he asks.

"Maybe you secretly love it," she says, "and you just didn't want to admit it."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

Actually, scratch that. It's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard, excepting every other thing she's said since she moved in.

"You're the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

Like that.

"What?" he asks, genuinely puzzled. Half the time he can't even pretend to keep up with their conversations.

"Your face," she answers. So, at least that's cleared up for him.

"Jess -"

"The shirt's sad, Nick," she says. "It's sad that you don't want to wear it."

"Shirts don't have feelings."

"You don't have feelings."

Maybe that should hurt. Maybe she's right, after all. "I do too have feelings. And right now, I feel like I want to get dressed. In my own clothes."

"Fine," she says, crossing her arms under her chest. It - doesn't do disgusting things to her tank top, is all he's saying. "Be that way."

She storms off, then (or tries to; it's Jess, so she's still mostly just bouncing, but a little less).

"And take the shirt," he yells, throwing it out the door after her.

-

That's the last he hears about the shirt for a few days. He starts to relax, starts to think she's forgotten about it.

(Seriously, is he new?)

-

It's back in his closet again on Friday. And the way he knows this is because there's absolutely nothing else in there.

"Jess!" he bellows. He's pretty sure people the next block over could hear him.

No Jess. (Even though he can hear her, like, right in the kitchen, singing some stupid made up song about how Nick's got no clothes to wear, now he's naked Nick, very funny.)

He hunts around on the floor - yeah, charming, he knows, but desperate circumstances and all that. He finds his pants no problem, right next to the bed where he dropped them, but no shirt. (No underwear, either, and he doesn't even want to know.)

He exits his room to the far too enthusiastic catcalls of Schmidt and Winston. And Jess, standing between them, yelling loudest of all.

"Very funny," he says. "Can I have my clothes back now?"

Jess pouts theatrically. "You're still not wearing it."

"No," he says. "I'm not wearing it."

Silence. And maybe it's something about the look on her face, but he gets it; maybe how much this means to her, or maybe just how far she's willing to go to get her own way.

(Nick always thought he was stubborn. And Jess looks easygoing, but man.)

"If I agree to wear it," he says, and he wishes her eyes didn't light up like that, "will you give me my clothes back?"

"Yes," she says, way too quickly. He should have held out longer. "But you have to wear it for the entire day."

"I'm not leaving the house."

"Don't you have to go to work?" Winston asks. Helpfully.

"I'll call in sick," he says, and then to Jess, "Deal?"

"Deal," she says. And, yep, there's the bouncing. "You can have your clothes back tomorrow."

Nick tells himself it's a victory.

(He doesn't look in the mirror when he puts the shirt on.)

-

02.

"Jess, no."

"This is really important to me," she says, and she's got that face, the one Nick finds it really hard to say no to, even if he pretends he doesn't. The one that makes her look like Bambi, and screw you, okay, real mean are allowed to cry at that movie, it's freaking sad.

"Some of us have work to do," Winston says, and then, at Schmidt's look, "I didn't say me."

"Yeah," Nick agrees, but without much feeling. "I have to work in seven hours ..."

"And I have to try out my new mineral water spray," Schmidt says.

"You mean the spray bottle you paid fifteen dollars for?" Winston asks.

"It maintains the natural pH balance of my skin, Winston."

"It's water, Schmidt. Fifteen-dollar water."

Just because some of us care about -"

"Guys," Jess interrupts, and Nick could kiss her. Or whatever. "Please. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't super important."

"You mean like that time you asked me to hold your yarn for an hour?" Winston asks.

"Or that time you made us listen to -"

"Okay," she says. "But this time it really is."

And there's not really anything else they can argue, except that it's stupid, and they've already tried that.

"Fine," Nick says. "But just this one time."

"Thank you so much," Jess says, and she actually hugs him, so maybe this is a big deal. Or maybe she's just being Jess. "It won't take long, I promise, and I only need a thousand more votes before I'm beating stupid Ella Jane Tulip."

"A thousand votes?" Nick asks. Maybe he agreed too quickly.

"I really appreciate it," she says, passing out these stupid tiny laptops he can only assume she borrowed from school. Or stole, maybe. "Go Team Jess!"

"We're not Team Jess," Nick says reflexively.

"We are according to the commemorative mugs I made," she says, holding up a truly hideous monstrosity with _Team Jess Winners 2012_ printed on one side, and _suck it Ella Jane Tulip_ on the other.

"That's terrible," Nick says.

"Really not classy," Winston adds.

"I want those out of the apartment right now," Schmidt says.

"I know, right?" Jess says, and Nick has to wonder what she actually heard. "Come on team! On your marks, get set - click!"

-

03.

"Jess," Nick says. "It's just a baseball game."

Jess whirls on him, and, okay, maybe that was the wrong thing to say. "It isn't just a baseball game, Nick," she says. Her eyes are freakishly wide. "It's about pride. About spirit. About being able to hold your head up and say, 'World, this is me. Deal with it.'"

"And winning a baseball game."

"Aren't you taking this a little too seriously?" Winston cuts in, and Nick's grateful to him, because now Jess is glaring at Winston instead. "I mean, it's a friendly kids' game. There's not even a prize."

"The prize," Jess says, thumping on her chest, "is here."

"Your tits are the prize?" Schmidt asks. And then, not at all surprisingly, "I'll play."

"Jar," Winston says.

"No, Schmidt," Jess says, wrinkling up her face. It's oddly cute.

(It's not cute.)

"It's heart," she says. "These kids have been though a lot this year, and they need something they can hold onto, to say, we did this. We aren't losers."

"That's really inspiring," Nick says. "You should give that losers speech to the kids. I bet it'll make them feel great about themselves."

"You guys," Jess says. "They just need a little encouragement, is all. It would really mean the world to them if you could help us out."

Which sounds reasonable. It sounds reasonable, right? At least until you get to the uniforms. And the giant foam fingers. And the body paint.

"I'm not waving this," Schmidt says, shaking one of the pom poms Jess brought home, and she grins like he's just agreed for all of them. Which Nick supposes he probably has.

"Deal," Jess says.

"And I'm not painting my face," Nick says.

"Yes, you are," she says, and he sighs. Yes, he is.

-

The stadium is ... not packed. Also not a stadium, unless a couple dozen parental types sitting around a ragged school oval counts, which Nick is pretty sure it doesn't. At any rate, it makes it really easy for people to notice when he, Winston, and Schmidt walk in wearing adult sized versions of the kids' uniforms, black and red paint covering their faces.

Half the kids on the team aren't even in uniform.

"I'm going to kill her," he mutters. "I am really going to kill her this time."

"You're not going to kill her," Winston says.

"Yes, I am," he says. "This is the most embarrassed I've ever been in my life."

Winston and Schmidt both turn to look at him at that, and he reconsiders.

"Top five," he says. "Ten. Top twenty. This is definitely in the top fifty most embarrassing moments of my life."

"Just think of the positives," Schmidt suggests.

"Like what, Schmidt?" he demands. "What positives could there possibly be to looking like this?"

Schmidt shrugs, and waves at something in the distance. "That hot single mom over there is totally checking me out."

"And how is that a positive for me?"

"I didn't say it was for you," Schmidt says, and Nick sighs. Great. Only four more hours of this and he can go home.

So, basically this is going to be torture.

-

"Did you see that?" Nick yells. Technically he doesn't have to - a smattering of polite applause is hardly a roaring crowd - but he can't quite help it. "That was great!"

"With the ..." Winston says, gesturing to the field. "And the ..."

"And then when Peter finally scored," Schmidt adds.

"Dude," Nick says. "Are you crying?"

"I've just got something in my eye."

"What, like snake venom eye cream?"

"I told you, it's revolutionary medicine."

"Schmidt, it's snake venom. That you put in your eye."

"I wound't expect you to understand," Schmidt says, and then turns to Winston. "So, what does that make the score?"

"Nineteen to one," Winston says.

"Think we can still win?"

Winston stares at him silently for a moment. "When we're down eighteen runs at the end of the eighth inning? No, Schmidt, I don't think we can still win."

"Jess must be crushed," Nick says, and then glances over at her. "Or not."

"Wow," Winston says. "She's taking this really well."

And then Nick looks closer, and sees that she isn't just smiling - she's smiling and pointing across the field, right at the three of them, and the kid she's with looks over and laughs. He's getting his ass kicked, and the kid is laughing.

Maybe it's not just a stupid kids' game.

"Guys," he says, as the kids get ready to go back on the field. "I think it's time."

"No," Schmidt says. "Nick, no. The single mom -"

"Is not going to lose interest just because you take your shirt off."

"Are you sure?" Winston asks, and Nick glances back over at Jess.

"Yeah, he says. "I'm sure."

-

"You guys," she says, running up to them. For a second, Nick thinks she's going to hug them, but them she looks at the paint and takes a step back instead. "You're Team Jess."

"We're not -" Nick starts.

"It's painted on your chests," she says. "Team Jess!"

"That doesn't mean -"

"Schmidt's the exclamation mark."

"You know it," he says, and Jess rolls her eyes.

"You really came through for me today," she says, looking at them all in turn, and Nick thinks maybe her eyes linger on his just a little bit longer. Maybe. "Thank you."

"It was nothing," he says.

"No, really, it means a lot to me," she says. "And to the kids. Because today was about them."

"Yeah," Nick says. "Well, that's why we did it. You know, for the kids."

"Yeah," she says, and bumps her shoulder with his. "For the kids."

-

Afterwards, he doesn't really know if it was worth the permanent photo opportunity, but at the time, in the heat of the moment -

Yeah, Nick thinks it was worth it.


End file.
